UPDATED at 10:13 a.m. May 9, 2019: This story about a mother and son hanging on to their family's Texas dance hall was originally published Jan. 9. We're bringing it back in honor of Mother's Day, May 12.

SEATON, Texas — Upstairs, silver-haired couples dance to polkas, country waltzes, two-steps, three-steps, line dances and chair dances, like they have here at Tom Sefcik Hall every Sunday for nearly a century.

Downstairs, Kenny Sulak relaxes behind the bar and checks the Bud Light clock on the wall. Every few minutes, he opens another beer for one of a few regulars.

There’s only a handful tonight. They congregate near Alice Sulak’s regular spot under the clock.

She’ll tell you in her bouncing Texas-Czech accent that she’s spent her whole life here, “running up and down since I was a little bitty thing.” She lives across the gravel parking lot in a home that, like the dance hall, was built by her father.

Kenny Sulak (left) and his mother, Alice Sulak, talk to customers at the downstairs bar.

(Nathan Hunsinger/Staff Photographer)

Couples dance to Jerry Haisler and the Melody 5.

(Nathan Hunsinger/Staff Photographer)

The first customers arrive on a Sunday night at Tom Sefcik Hall, which was built in 1923.

(Nathan Hunsinger/Staff Photographer)

Couples dance to Jerry Haisler and the Melody 5.

(Nathan Hunsinger/Staff Photographer)

But now, at 88, her health isn’t what it once was. Her blue eyes are fading a little. She has a bad back and can’t walk upstairs to the dance floor like she used to.

For Kenny, 56, taking care of an elderly parent is one thing. Taking care of an elderly dance hall is another — a responsibility that he knows is part of the package with Alice.

“The hall is part of her existing,” he said. “Me running the hall with her in it is me supporting her and keeping her going.”

Sefcik Hall, built in 1923, is one of the last original dance halls in the region, a fading piece of Texas culture. They were built by German and Czech immigrant communities and transformed into honky-tonks and bars where Texas music was born and raised.

Time has run out on many of these historic halls, as patrons age and fewer young people learn to dance. Now, they’re at risk of becoming abandoned barns or private clubs. So too, for Kenny and Alice, time continues to slip away.

Alice runs the business. If you call the dance hall, she picks up the phone. Wondering who the band is? Alice will know. Need to reserve a table for your church group? Alice can help.

But during the week, it's Kenny running errands for the dance hall on lunch break at his full-time job in nearby Temple. He also helps keep track of his mother’s appointments, cleans her home and makes sure there’s food in her fridge.

On weekends, he’s here to open and close the dance hall. Sometimes he’s here as late as 1 a.m. waiting for the last customers to finish their beers.

“I miss more church than I’d like to because I’m just tired,” he said. “Who else is going to do it? It’s part of taking care of my mother. This is all she’s ever known. If she had to crawl on her hands and knees over here, she’d do it.”

Alice’s short-term memory isn’t tack-sharp these days, but she can still remember back when her father opened the place as a general store. It was mostly polka and other Czech music upstairs before the country and rock ’n’ roll bands came through.

Customers walk upstairs to the dance floor at Tom Sefcik Hall.

(Nathan Hunsinger/Staff Photographer)

Owner Alice Sulak, 87, grabs the one and only Dr Pepper she allows herself a day as Tom Sefcik Hall opens its doors.

She remembers playing the drums, then saxophone in her sister’s band. She remembers the old days when they had to open big windows on the sides of the dance hall on sticky summer nights, then finally getting air-conditioning in the early 1980s.

The downstairs bar used to be open all week with the regular dances on Sundays. Then, a few years ago, Alice’s health forced her to scale back. Now you’ll find the doors open just on weekend nights.

“I remember a lot of the good times and a lot of the times that wasn’t exactly that good,” she said. “But it was all fun. It was all fun. Yep.”

■ ■ ■

The dancers continue to scoot-stomp-step upstairs to songs by George Strait, Waylon Jennings and Bob Wills. Alice slaps her leg along with the beat.

“Almost 9,” Kenny says, checking the Bud Light clock. “Almost done.”

“Almost done already?” she says.

Kenny sits beside her, and she carefully reaches down toward her ankle.

She doesn't want to. A cold rain is moving in and it might not be gone in the morning. She’s already called to cancel her ride to the appointment.

“No, I’m not going to no doctor if it’s raining,” she says.

Kenny sighs. “You need to go to the doctor,” he says, then drops the subject, looking around the bar.

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Just before 10 p.m., the last of the customers finish their beers and file out the front door. Kenny puts on a jacket and goes upstairs. The band’s long gone, so he shuts off the lights and locks the doors to the worn staircase.

Alice stays behind the bar in her brown vinyl seat with her head hung low as Kenny counts the cash from the night.

“How much did we make?” Alice asks.

“We had 81 people,” he says. Each paid a $7 entry, plus beer sales and tips.

“81 people?” Alice says. “That’s better than I thought.”

Kenny’s not sure what will happen to the place when Alice is gone. He doesn’t want to think about it. He says he might lease the dance hall while he continues his own career, but will want something to do when he retires.

Tonight, he’s more concerned with closing up before it gets too late.

He pulls out a notepad and counts the beers under the bar, making tallies for what to buy for next weekend. He clears the tip jars and shuts off the jukebox. Now the only noise is a buzz from the old neon Pearl Beer sign above the bar. He collects a few empty bottles off one of the tables in back, and hits the last of the overhead lights.

“All right,” he says. “That’s it.”

“I-T, it,” Alice says.

The Bud Light clock reads 10:04 p.m. In a few hours, another week will begin with more errands to run and appointments to make.

Kenny gently guides his mother to her walker. The floorboards creak and groan as he escorts Alice out the back door of the old dance hall.

Next Sunday, he'll do the same. And the Sunday after that. And the next, if he can.

As long as Alice is at her spot behind the bar, until the last customers leave and it's time to shut off the lights, Kenny will be there.

Kenny Sulak's tending to the dance hall is part of his devotion to his mother, owner Alice Sulak.